Looking at the Tory and Labour parties this week has been like watching Germany and England play football.

The Tories are like Germany. ­Ruthlessly efficient, they achieve their goal with the minimum of fuss – or even a contest.

Labour is England. Our fans desperately want us to do well but we often get knocked out early by our own worst enemy – ourselves.

This week a coup, organised by a group of Bitterite MPs to undemocratically remove Jeremy Corbyn, failed. I used this column to beg our MPs not to hold that vote of no confidence in Jeremy, hoping the jaw-jaw of peace talks would resolve it.

I was asked by Unite’s Len McCluskey, who read my piece, to speak to the negotiating teams.

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I offered my view on how it would be possible to extend further talks.

Deputy Leader Tom Watson was initially successful in getting candidates to hold off their leadership challenges and further talks with the unions were set to take place in Brighton last Sunday.

Angela Eagle (Image: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

So I was quite shocked Tom pulled out the day before and ended all negotiations, claiming in a Guardian article that Jeremy still wanted to stay on as leader.

Len described it as an “act of ­sabotage”. Within minutes Angela Eagle said she would finally challenge Corbyn.

It allowed Angela to launch her campaign, prior to an NEC discussion on whether Corbyn should automatically be on the leadership election ballot. Angela or other PLP candidates could have decided to stand and remove him democratically. But instead we’ve had two weeks of MPs demanding Corbyn stand down.

Their strategy of mass resignations and a no-confidence motion was designed to force Corbyn to resign because they felt the members would re-elect him.

Some say that even if Corbyn wins the leadership election they still won’t serve under him. They claim Jeremy is a “decent and honest man” and don’t even disagree with his policies. They just don’t believe he’s a good leader or that he can win an election.

How can they say Corbyn’s a loser after just nine months in office? Has he lost by-elections? No, he’s won them all. Has membership dropped? No, it’s doubled to a record half million. He’s also secured countless Tory U-turns, including on tax credit cuts and austerity, which the Bitterites were going to back.

I have worked with every Labour leader since Harold Wilson. Two won elections – Wilson one and Blair three. The rest lost – Foot, Miliband and Brown once, Kinnock twice.

The one common electoral denominator was unity. If the leaders had it, they won. If they didn’t, we lost.

We’re now heading to the biggest period of disunity in Labour’s history.

We face a pointless civil war that pits MPs against members and trade unionists and groups like Momentum on the left against Progress on the right. A dispute not about policy, but personalities.

It’s a fight no one can win.

But the greatest losers will be the millions of people who’ll continue to suffer under a Mark II Thatcher.

Labour is the only party that can defend them and defeat the Tories.

But it requires a united Labour.

That means accepting the result and not for the PLP to issue a Universal Declaration of Independence and split from Labour.

Whoever’s elected, the MPs MUST support the leader and the democratic mandate given by the members.